Charles R. Stevens

Sorry, double post.

The flue dosnt have to take up pan space, use a larger pipe, say 10-12" (two chimney pipes zipped to gether, a stack of 5 gallon metal buckets, colvert, 25 gallon grease drums, etc.) and set it behind your forge, but close to the fire, maybe 1/2 on 1/2 off, or hange it, a good stack will draw the smoke sideways.

Drawing out I's a basic skill. Wich can be done in many ways, efficiently in a few ways. This is what cross pein, strait pein and fullers are designed for. A bit more experienced smith may use the horn, off edge of the anvil or the edge of his hammer to acomplish the same thing. As Tommas points out, cutting a peice out to start with, then drowning it out with a fuller and a striker is one if the more effecient ways to do so.

If the anvil was drifted with a 1" drift, instead of on slightly larger it would cool to less than 1". Even with cast anvils, were the core srunk in manufacture. Just lightly grind or file the shank to fit in all fore positions. Read the blue prints, hoffi has a great explination on drifts, I forget, but he said steal expands something like 1/10000" per degree. So that's something like a 1.o18" drift to make a 1" hole at room temp.

Not a bad choice for tongs, and other quick anvil tools

Watch the visitors again, especially Brian's, you'll we that he will deliver a few very heavy full handle, full sroke blowes then chokes up and planish. It's not all about the sheer mass it's the fact that when you need 4# and 16" of handle you have it in hand, wile you can choke up for a more delicate blow. No need to reach for a diferant hammer mid heat

Mac, I thaught that was why the invented power hammers ;-)

Actually, like the sledge if you choke up a bit, and turn the hammer so the head is standing up its easer to lift as you don't have the hammer leverage, then as you get her strait up over head start your swing letting the hammer handle slip forward mid swing. If you want to really get in to your swing with a big hammer! It's just so versital to use a big hammer, choked up or full handle I admit it takes getting used to and you use a differant technic. I just prefer to take heavy rhymec strokes than to peck at the steel like a chiwawa in heat! .

My shop anvil is set at knuckle hight where I use larger/heavier hammer. Wile my truck anvil is at rist hight where I use smaller lighter hammers for shoe work. As I've gained experience I find that I'm more comfortable with the lower anvil hight now, and will be lowering the truck anvil stand. Bend your knees if your havin trouble seeing what your doing

As has been said, try it For a week

The one advantage a lighter hammer has over the heavier hammer is it tends to have a smaller contact area. One of my fave rite hammers is an old cross pein with a round eye. Funky to handle, I usually use a peice of hoe or sovel handle, then rasp it to shape so it hangers right. But it's shaped almost ball like, being thick and round in the middle, having a face only about 2/3 the diameter of the middle around the eye , and a smallish pein it's only about 2# and lives on the shoing rig for when I do general forging (hoof picks and such)

Kinda, LR, hold the two conductors in the middle, bend one 90 degree and rap it round the other, repeat on the other side. Strain will pull the two to gether instead of apart. Not the pretreat job, but it shows it. Works on mutable strands as well. Just rap around the bundle and keep breaking out a new wire till you run out of wire. The last pic is a loop,and not a splice but it should give you the idea.

From the framers point of veiw, if a wall is out of plum, or you need to persuade a 2x in to place, a framing hammer will mash, dent and mangle the wood, wile a "gentlal" tap with a slege won't hardly mare the serfaces but the wall will move ;-)

A forge is a fire place. The question is how much do you need to modify it to make it contain a deap enugh bed of coals, provide an air blast and space to move stock in and out of the fire. It would appear that you could use it as the foundation to build a nice forge.obviusly lose the doores...

As I understand it, it's a multy fold problem, as a hobbiest, obtaining the consistant high heat (but not to high) to melt the steel, but not burn of the carbon, or intrudice atmospheric contaminants. Obtaining, or manufacturing equipment that will safely handle the molten steel, and actually safely porting it in to a mold. Molten aluminum is dangerous enugh. The consensus seams to be, the expense, skills needed and safty concerns one is money ahead to perchase a cast steel component, or fabricate/forge one. In the world of marketing comparing apples to oranges is a valade way to sell a product. Forged iron and steel was the way to go when rought iron was the king and steel was its cousin, as the slag inclusians ment that a forged peice was much like a split out tool handle verses a sawn one ( the grain ran in the right direction) wile cutting out a peice was my so good as you ended up cutting across the grain and the peice might split/crack along the slag inclusions. In to days age, marketing uses this "knlowlege" that forged is better as a selling point. And comparing a forged crank shaft or piston rods to cast nodular iron one was a selling point for high performance engines. But to say that the forged part was better because it was forged vs cast was a fallacy, you cast nodular iron, wile it is more economical to forge steel to manufacuare a crank shaft vs casting a steel one. And frankly steel starts out as cast billets thease days, and are rolled (forged) in to bars and plates, cold rolling dose work harden the serfaces, but as soon as we heat it that goes away.

If you combine Neil's advice with the beginner projects presented you'll be of to a good start. Forging a taper is forging a hot (no need to heat treat) or cold cut chisel, forging a round or square taper is forging a punch, etc. you start with the basic skills, and move on to the practical toos. Chisel, punch, tongs... I would recommend (like Neil) controlled hand forging, as well as JB Stokes basic, intermidiat and advanced blacksmithing manuals, just google them there online. That and a mentor will get you started with the skills and tools you need.

Interesting that the tools shown in hand look to be forged from coil spring wile the ones shown in a pile are all forged from what looks to be new 1/2" (12mm) Nice work regardless, the tools in hand have a wonderfull patina of use.

The depth of the movement of the metal with a heaver hammer has a telling effect, inertia seems to ad just a bit to the mix. In truth I'd rather choke up on a 4# hammer and take less BPM, than be out on the end of a 2# hamme and hitting at twice the BPM.

The advantage to the long shafts is it helps with interfearance when your trying to get that particular spot. Just think how a twin arbor bench grinder can be a pain working around the motor housing. Now I would suggest building some guards and work steadies. Make then adjustable and easy to remove. But build them and use them. I have the rear axle assembly from an old Yamaha 3 wheeler, that is satartind to look like a grinder about now ;-)

I second Glenn on the foam, works well. If you want to step it up, just ad something like tissue paper etc. between the plastic and the product. Plastic trash bags work well for containing the foam.

I read an article about the guy who invented silicon. He has a green house made from silicon on fiberglass windo screen, over 40 years old. He claimed that the endurance tests are on going (ie, haven't be gain to fail) Longevity shouldn't be a problem.

John's just showing off now ;-)

Amazing, Tommas, being your wife is only 39 ;-) Told my mother, wen I turned 39 that if she was going to lie about her age, tell every one she was 103. So at least people would say " wow you look great" as apposed to " she looks terrible"

Certification programs are like unions, when they work, everyone benifits, when they don't a few benifit greatly and everyone else suffers. Politics usually has more to do with what skills, practices and experience is required than best practice. Farriers in the is are no different. We have two orginizations in the US, one seems more interested in compititions than working farriers, and neither really strives for "best practice" over "tradition" Both orginizations have a bunch of shoes you need to master forging, of which 1/2 of them have been superseded by newer tech, or were "invented" after shoing horses was already a lost art. Much of what one needs to know is in manuals a hundred years old or so, and much of what we are taught is flat unhealthy for the horse. Nevecular desease, ring bone, contracted heals and road founder are all caused by things the farriers schools and associations teach us to do. Ok, I'll climb down if my soap box. Personally if all farriers in the is were required to be certified, that would be fine, we would be able to double our rates.

Yes sir they do do a heck of a job on grills and smokers, especially the pipeline weldors